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A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

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Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#111

Post by Nursie »

fmihaila wrote: post #97
mark-r wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely sure that's correct. If you try to sell something that relies on GPL software, it's considered a derivative work even if you don't distribute the GPL software with yours.

It is a derivative work, but selling derivatives of GPL-ed software is entirely legal and not forbidden by the GPL. Distributing binaries (regardless if for free or not) of GPL-derived software without distributing the source from which the binaries were derived (or without offering a reasonable way of getting the source on demand) is forbidden by the GPL. Moreover, the source of the derivative work must be offered u…

While that is true, as part of a derivative work, your users would have your source under GPL terms.

Absolutely you can sell, but your can't restrict user rights

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#112

Post by belorn »

emodendroket wrote: post #50
cygx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Premise: You have legally obtained a copy of some software. Status quo: You can use the software. You're not allowed to redistribute copies or modified versions of the software. EULA: You may only use the software if you agree to additional terms. Usage rights are restricted. GPL: You may redistribute copies as well as modified versions as long as distribution happens under the terms of the GPL. Distribution rights a…

What about the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability?

Disclaimer and limitation of liability is a very old legal aspect about trade law which from a US perspective historically originate from UK law before the time of colonization. It has nothing to do with copyright or technology.

As the story go, someone bought a mill shaft but the delivery was delayed and the customer sued the seller and wanted compensation for the delay. This in turn lead to a legal requirement to make the customer aware of limitations. When the US organization for trade (a name which is escaping me) made their recommendation based on the version of law which was "copied" over, they added that one way to do so could be to use all caps or by changing the color or font, which companies adapted by simply picking the first suggestion.

The distance of the original case of the mill shaft and some open source software thats public available on the Internet for free is quite a far one.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#113

Post by scott_karana »

analog31 wrote: post #107

That means Hancom would have to open-source its entire suite of apps. Ask HN: What if the vendor had structured their product in a way that GhostScript is its own stand-alone app. Would they still be obligated to release their entire code, or just the portion that uses GhostScript?

As long as it's not linked to their binaries, invoking it separately is fine.

I believe they might need to allow for others to download the source of Ghostscript whether modified or not, but that part isn't hard. :)

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#114

Post by sqeaky »

cryptarch wrote: post #47
empressplay wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one way is to engineer in obscure but reproducible behaviour, along the lines of A->B->C results in D. people who are likely to steal code are unlikely to audit it sufficiently to identify esoteric behaviour.

That's a good idea, very similar to map makers hiding small deficits to find copiers. That gets awfully close to DRM, though.

It seems like that would be just for the purpose of detection and wouldn't stop people from using either the map or the software.

DRM is bad because it both doesn't stop pirates and hurts normal users. This allows detection of pirates and hurts no one.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#115

Post by icebraining »

mark-r wrote: post #99
merijnv wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm guessing Stallman is completely disgusted by the possibility of dual licensing. You'd be wrong, though. He considers it a legitimate alternative to "not releasing source at all": > I consider selling exceptions an acceptable thing for a company to do, and I will suggest it where appropriate as a way to get programs freed. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions

That's interesting, thanks for the citation. I was basing my opinion on his well-known hate of proprietary software, and his desire to make all software free. Dual licensing works counter to that, because it allows someone to use GPL software without making their own derivative software available too.

Well, it's not "GPL software", it's software that's also distributed under the GPL. That's being freely distributed at all is a win compared to most commercial software.

And in fact, it could be argued that it's better (for rms' goals) than MIT/BSD/etc, since the proprietary license will impose some restrictions on its usage by other proprietary vendors.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#116

Post by mjw1007 »

DannyBee wrote: post #37
imanewsman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're wrong, I just think you're splitting hairs. The order says the license is a contract that exists, sure. Contracts are enforceable.

No. The order says that iff what the plaintiff says is true , a contract probably exists :)

I see no justification for the arm of that 'iff' which is equivalent to "if what the plaintiff says is not true, then it is not the case that a contract probably exists".

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#117

Post by qb45 »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #64
iplaw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A license is a contract. I don't understand the artificial distinction between the two, specifically in reference to GNU GPL. http://www.technollama.co.uk/a-licence-or-a-contract

I like how correct comments like yours around here every time gpl comes up are downvoted to oblivion. shows there's load work to do from the eff to educate people at wtf gpl is

Well, that's what happens when people use wrong terminology and instead of explaining or suggesting fixes you just go "nope, you are wrong, every X is Y because Z says so". And I didn't downvote this post, btw.

On a tangential note, there's also a load of work to do from somebody to educate you wtf EFF is and why it doesn't care about the GPL and who actually does care ;)

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#118

Post by uiri »

__ddd__ wrote: post #36
imanewsman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're wrong, I just think you're splitting hairs. The order says the license is a contract that exists, sure. Contracts are enforceable.

Not all contracts are enforceable. I would be surprised if the entirety of v3 is enforceable

Out of curiosity: which parts of v3 do you believe to be unenforceable?

I think that, given the time, effort, and professional expertise which went into drafting it, that the entire thing should be enforceable.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#119

Post by bluGill »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #46
blauditore wrote: post #28

One thing I often wonder is how a company providing such open source software can find out (and proof) if someone is using it in a closed-source project. All I can think of is "guessing" based on behavior of the downstream tool. Also, the article doesn't say much about how that lawsuit came to be. Did Artifex approach Hancom beforehand to notify them about the license infringement or just directly sue? I guess in thi…

>I can imagine some (smaller) companies not being fully aware of open source license specifics and unknowingly running into a lawsuit This is not a real problem until there are licensing trolls, where their sole purpose is to make money off of breaches. If a company receives a lawsuit, they can claim ignorance and start to comply with the contract. This would change it into a minor breach of contract, where they woul…

Note that if the copyright is registered before hand the infringement occurs actual damages changes to triple actual damages. (In the US) registering a copyright is cheap, but for software you have to register each version separately which adds up quick. You have to register copyright before you can sue for violations in any case.

Most of the time lawyers advise the policy that you don't register until you are ready to sue for a violation. You only get actual damages but this is typically enough. However if you believe someone is actually going to violate your copyright (or you want to spend $25 + plus lawyer fees) you should register before you release software: you will get triple damages.

I'm not sure what damages means in terms of the GPL though. In the case of a book you can say the book sold for some amount of dollars so every sale of your illegal copy cost me that amount of dollars.

Re: A federal court has denied a pre-trial motion to dismiss a GPL enforcement case

#120

Post by singlow »

Nursie wrote: post #111
fmihaila wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a derivative work, but selling derivatives of GPL-ed software is entirely legal and not forbidden by the GPL. Distributing binaries (regardless if for free or not) of GPL-derived software without distributing the source from which the binaries were derived (or without offering a reasonable way of getting the source on demand) is forbidden by the GPL. Moreover, the source of the derivative work must be offered u…

While that is true, as part of a derivative work, your users would have your source under GPL terms. Absolutely you can sell, but your can't restrict user rights

This is correct - you not only must include the source code for your binary, you also must include it under the same terms as the original source code.
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